Man of the South

   Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanc for Friday.

   On this day in 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president of the Confederate States of America. After seven states had left the Union the previous year, Davis had been named provisional president. In the meantime an election had been held which Davis won without opposition. His wife Varina considered it a tragedy for the family. Davis himself would have preferred to have been leading soldiers in the army.
   Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808 a few months before, and 100 miles distant from, his future adversary Abrham Lincoln. He was the youngest of ten children. His oldest brother Joseph, who would have great influence in his life, was 23 years his senior.
   When Davis was three the family moved to Mississippi and purchased plantations in the Delta. Davis was sent to high school academies in Kentucky. In 1824, brother Joseph arranged for Davis’s appointment to West Point. Just before Christmas of 1826, a large amount of whiskey was smuggled into the barracks to make eggnog. Things got out of hand and the event is remembered as the Eggnog Riot. Davis, along with a third of all the cadets at the academy, was arrested,
   After graduating in 1828, Lieutenant Davis was stationed at various forts in the Upper Midwest, which was still the frontier. He met and fell in love with Sara Taylor. Her father was Feneral Zachery Taylor, future war hero and president. Taylor refused permission for the couple to marry. He thought being the wife of a soldier was too difficult. Davis enjoyed the military, but resigned his commission to marry Sara.

   Davis’ brother Joseph loaned him 1800 acres to start his own plantation. Unfortunately, Sara died of malaria three months after her marriage. Davis also became very sick and suffered recurring bouts of malaria the rest of his life. After Sara’s death, Davis became a bit of a recluse, spending his time developing his plantation.
   As he worked on his land, he began buying slaves and owned 113 by the time of the Civil War. In 1845 he married his second wife Varina and that same year was elected to Congress as a representative. The next year the Mexican War broke out and Davis raised a regiment and was named colonel.
   He was accounted a brave soldier in the war and was wounded during the battle of Buena Vista. After the war he was appointed to the Senate. He campaigned for the Democratic candidate Franklin Pierce who won the election of 1852. Pierce appointed Davis Secretary of War. Davis increased pay for the army which had not been increased in 25 years. He beefed up the size of the army from 11,000 to 15,000. Such minuscule numbers compared to the hundreds of thousands who would fight in the coming war.
   When Pierce failed to get the nomination in 1856, Davis returned to the Senate. The south was on the verge of leaving the Union in these years. Davis spoke against secession, though he said the states did have the right to leave.
   Seven states used the election of Lincoln as a reason to leave the Union and form a new confederation. Once the war started in April of 1861, four more states joined them. President Davis knew the North was much stronger in manpower and materials.  He realized he had to fight a defensive war.  The South just had to hold on till the North got sick of fighting.
   Davis did his best, but he was not the man for the job. Historians say Davis was never able to rally his country as Lincoln did in the North. He was unable to work with his adversaries. The South had left for states rights and state governors put their own states’ needs above that of the country.
   It all fell apart in May of 1865. The Confederate government fled south when Richmond fell, and Davis’s last cabinet meeting was held in Washington, Georgia. Davis spent the next two years in Federal prison. There was talk of trying him for treason but he was eventually pardoned. He spent the rest of his life trying to overcome money problems while maintaining his antebellum lifestyle. He wrote his memoirs, justifying the South’s secession from the Union. He died in 1889 at the age of 81. Though hated by the army and the common people during the war, he was given a hero's send off as a symbol of the Lost Cause.